Sera obtained from 302 patients with acute viral hepatitis were studied for the presence of organ and non organ specific autoantibodies and of circulating immune complexes (CIC). Autoantibodies were ...determined by indirect immunofluorescence techniques and CICs were detected by 125 J - C1q assay (C1qBA according to Zubler et al., 1976). A high prevalence of anti smooth muscle autoantibodies (SMA) was found in the sera of the patients. In particular, SMA were found in the sera from 44/73 (60.2%), 92/182 (50.55%) and 10/47 (21.3%) of A, B and nonA nonB hepatitis, respectively. The highest prevalence of SMA was observed within 10 days after the clinical onset of the disease in hepatitis A patients and within 10-15 days in nonA nonB hepatitis. The prevalence of SMA in hepatitis B is persistently high during the first two weeks of illness, then decreases and, about the 3rd week, increases again. CIC were detected in 156 sera from 302 patients (51.65%) affected by acute viral hepatitis. The prevalence of CIC was significantly higher in hepatitis A (78.08%) than in B and nonA nonB hepatitis (45.6% and 34.03% respectively). CIC were demonstrated in almost all the sera of hepatitis A patients admitted between the 6th and the 15th day after the onset of the disease. A strict connection was observed between SMA and CIC and, although to a lesser extent, between CIC and markers of A and B viruses. No significant connection between CIC and serum aminotransferase or bilirubin levels was noted. CIC screening was performed weekly for 1 month after admission in 225 patients with acute viral hepatitis. According to our data, the clearance of immune complexes from serum seems to occur more quickly in B and nonA nonB hepatitis than in virus A hepatitis.
Pathological (190) and normal (33) sera were tested for their content of circulating immune complexes (CIC) by a battery of 13 assays performed in 11 laboratories. Statistical processing was done ...both by pooling all pathological samples and by extracting those falling into well-defined disease groups, i.e., rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, lupus, melanoma, and glomerulonephritis. Highly significant correlations between methods--taken two at a time--for each disease differed in proportion (ranging from 6 to 30%) and in the pattern displayed on a checkerboard. Disease-linked patterns were also found when a function maximizing discrimination between pathological and normal samples was derived by combining the information from all methods. Here the order and the weight attributed by the computer to the methods differed for each of the disease groups. Taken together these results are interpreted as an indication that all assays may not determine the same classes of CIC, and thus vary in sensitivity depending on the prevailing properties of the complexes present in the serum, which in turn may depend on the etiology, pathogenesis, and stage of the disease.
